I Have, You Have: EAL Games

Looking for an activity to reinforce learning of some common past tense verbs for my beginner group, I came across this Blog linked on the main TESOL website,  and was reminded of a game I have not used for awhile: so many resources, they come and go and easily forgotten unless revisited.

This one is simple, easy to make and adaptable for all learning situations and ages.  I saw it being used for times table:

I have 12, who has 3 x 6?
I have 18, who has 4X5?
I have 20, who had 2 X8? etc

For past tense practice I use the following structure:

I have swam who has the past tense form of sleep?
I have slept, who has the past tense form of kick?
I have kicked, who has the past tense form of sing? etc

Sample template here to create your own.

EALToolKit For All Teachers

This simple and comprehensive  'toolkit' contains 50 practical strategies and advice for helping you as a teacher facilitate the  learning of EAL children in the classrooms.

A 'must -have' for all EAL support staff when asked by classroom teachers what they can do with the EAL children in their class.


Found here from the TES website :  EAL Toolkit

Should be in every classroom...

How Many Hours Does It Take to Learn English?

This article here from the BBC looks at how long it can take immigrants to the Uk to learn 'fluent' English.

Figures from this article say that  '726,000 people in England and Wales said they could not speak English well, and another 138,000 said they did not speak it at all.'

Factors impacting the time to learn English are quoted as:

• Age of the individual

• Number of languages already spoken

• Literacy and education in mother tongue

• Exposure and interaction with native English speakers

• Access to classes

News in Levels - Great site for English Learners

News in Levels - Great Early Morning Starter

This website has news articles supported with a choice of three different levels of text; each level has increasingly difficult structure and vocabulary.

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for highlighting this great resource.

Ideal for an early morning starter, with children asked to access the site with buit in differentiation and then coming together for a class discussion before starting the day. The news articles are also supported by videos and audio.

Supporting Parents to Support their Children

We recently held a Spanish Language coffee morning at school. The purpose?  To provide an opportunity for the parents to come together and collaborate on ways to maintain their children's mother tongue (in this case Spanish) whilst attending an English-medium International School.

The group was diverse, with 12 different nationalities represented in the room,  but one common thread  kept repeating and that was how difficult the job is as a parent to maintain the mother tongue outside of the home country

Starting ideas from the group included organizing a social event BBQ to bring all the families together so the children could see a common language culture they all belong to in the school, after-school lessons and purchasing some more spanish-lanaguage books for the library.

Thinking about  this group, I like this website for some practical tips for parents rasising bilungual children outisde of their home country.

Multilingual Children's Association

10 Most Spoken Languages on the Internet

Teaching Communication Skills in the Context of Internationalism

 

An important aspect of Internationalism is of course communication and as EAL teachers this can often be the focus of our lesson plan. As such, it is important o remember that communication is indeed a two-way process and equal weighting should be given to teaching children the skills of both listening and responding. Developing a sense of ‘other’ is fundamental to understanding Internationalism. With the very young, and still egocentric, children this can be done simply by asking them what they thought of their friend’s response, how did it make them feel, do they agree? The IPC emphasizes that when teaching communication skills time must be given to all of the areas of telling, persuading, discussing and deciding. Communicating effectively is an essential disposition that all children need to leave school with. For EAL learners it is important that they are taught the sense of ‘other’ as part of their language skills and learn to modify their language in response to their audience. Being a communicator who responds to both the implicit and explicit views of their audience is someone truly with the disposition to develop Internationalism. 

 IPC www.greatlearning.com/ipc

Reading Tips For Parents

This is a great website with useful handouts for parents in a number of languages. Reading Tips for Parents

http://youtu.be/hadT55umZU0

5 Models of Co-teaching

http://youtu.be/hadT55umZU0

New to English Resources

Looks like a great new resource for teachers supporting New to English students in mainstream classrooms. We are waiting for our copy... http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415586566/

The Benefits of Bilingualism

Being Bilingual not only has the obvious practical advantages but increasingly Science supports real changes in the brain improving cognitive skills and delaying brain disease in later years. Read more from the New York times here.

ELT Calendar

Click here for : International ELT event calendar

So you think the English Language is easy...

You think English is easy?? Challenge your EAL students to make sense of these.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.


15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer.


16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.


17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.


18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.


19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.


20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

OFSTED launches good practice website - EAL Case Study

Ofsted has developed a good practice website for schools and the first EAL case study has been published following a visit to Feltham Community College. Inspectors visiting the school found students learning EAL making outstanding progress through a combination of good teaching, rigorous assessment and monitoring procedures, and a tailored curriculum.

Click here to download the pdf full report.

Highlights:

“Students who speak English as an additional language are dragging our results down.” Comonally held view 2 years ago at the college.

Two years on, "students learning English as an additional language make outstanding progress from Key Stages 2 to 4 and the percentage achieving five good grades at GCSE is above the national average."

Expectations for their performance had to be raised and not based on Key Stage 2 data or the level of English when the pupil first arrived.

Targets are reviewed at least termly and usually raised so that students continually live with challenging targets

A rigorous system of assessment and monitoring is in place; every individual and group is tracked in each subject.

A comprehensive training programme uses the expertise in the department and the local authority specialist language service. As well as whole school training about how bilingual learners achieve and learn, the school tailors training to particular departments.

Leaders are ensuring that every department sees literacy and EAL as their responsibility.

The department also works with others in the school to build expertise through training and collaborative planning. According to one teacher, “Before there was no collaboration, now we share the curriculum.”

In lessons, EAL learners self-assess their own work and that of their peers so that they can identify points for development and be more involved in setting targets.

“... would be to raise expectations, and personalise target-setting, monitoring and tracking with a sharp focus on EAL groups. Provide EAL alongside English teaching, to create powerful learning opportunities that benefit all students.”

Crossing Borders

This looks like a great video for a Secondary PSHE programme on Interculturalism. I am hooked from the trailer and can't wait to get hold of the DVD.

Click here for the trailer.

Beautifully put...

Have a look at this link http://ambriteal.blogspot.com/ for some thoughtful quotes Jenny collected at the recent  ECIS ESL and MT Conference,Dusseldorf, March 3-5 2011.

Interculturalism - Who Cares?

Bangkok Patana School has a new blog and a new venture looking at Interculutralism within the school.

A group are working to find out what Interculturalism is, what is already happening at the school and how to do more.

http://interculturalism.blogspot.com/

Ebooks in Different Languages

This site is incredible - such a great range of texts and languages.

http://en.childrenslibrary.org/